An art gallery is inviting submissions from artists across the West Midlands to exhibit at the Coventry Open 2010.

Gallery 4 at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum is currently an empty open space of blank white walls and silence, but is offering the rare opportunity to have work exhibited at the renowned gallery.

The Coventry Open 2010 takes place from April 2 - June 13 and is open to all artists living in the West Midlands and Warwickshire,

Rosie Addenbrooke, senior exhibitions and events officer, said: "An empty gallery is a really eerie space. Walls of a gallery are usually covered with interesting paintings and objects for visitors to look at so to look at sparse white walls with no idea of what's going to fill them is slightly un-nerving.

"At the moment these walls are the blank canvas for the Coventry Open 2010 and all they need is people's inspiration and vision to create a brand new, never seen before exhibition. It's actually quite exciting."

The exhibition is open to any medium, including painting, drawing, print, sculpture, textiles, photography and film.

After submission, work for the exhibition is then selected by a panel of judges; this year's expert panel is made up of artist, John Keane whose work can be seen in the Herbert, fine art and photography course leader at Wolverhampton University, Su Fahy, and exhibitions officer at Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Karen MacKinnon.

There is a prize of £1,000 awarded by the judges to the overall winner and a Visitor Choice Prize of a solo exhibition will be offered to the artist receiving the most votes from visitors to the exhibition.

Artists can submit up to three pieces to the Herbert for consideration on MArch 20 from 10am until 4.30pm.